An Interview with Peter Denning
by Charlotte Thomas
Editor, CareerTech
February 1998
In February 1998, Charlotte Thomas interviewed Peter Denning in preparation for an article in CareerTech, an electronic magazine for engineering and computer science students. They discussed Engineering in the 21st Century.
Established in 1993, the Center for the New Engineer at George Mason University has been leading the curve in understanding the critical skills needed by engineers and computer scientists for our developing knowledge society. Though technical competency is essential, the Center's strategic vision (denninginstitute.com/cne/vision.html) stresses that "Engineers have an opportunity and responsibility to lead society to an understanding that the Internet is not only a worldwide network of communicating computers but also a place where communities form and where human concerns are dealt with."
Peter Denning, the Center's founding director and, for 1997-98, vice provost for Continuing Professional Education at George Mason, embodies that vision in his thinking. CareerTech recently interviewed him to ask what skills will be important to graduating engineers who will become the work force of the new millennium.
CT: What's your definition of the new engineer?
Denning: We emphasize communication, relationship, and leadership skills. In doing so, we do not diminish the importance of engineering competence. Engineers will be expected to solve problems and build systems in a professional and human way.
CT: Hasn't this always been so?
Denning: It's not easy in our Internet age. People spend a lot of time at a computer and in their computer-generated environments -- and they forget how to interact with others. You may acquire great engineering technical skills now, but you'll pay later because you'll be clumsy with relationships, with written and oral communication, and at observing and interpreting the world. You'll have trouble selling proposals, interacting with customers, getting along with team members and your boss, setting strategic directions, recovering from setbacks, and adapting to the unexpected.
CT: Industry people have been telling us for years that communication skills are needed in the workplace. Is this not getting through to engineering teachers and students?
Denning: We have packed so much "information" in our curricula that we don't allow enough time in class (or outside of class) for interactive discussions. We're moving in that direction, but the academic curriculum is slow to change. The easy way out is to take a communications course. That helps, but it is compartmentalized. Students need to engage in the practice of effective communication in engineering settings day in and day out.
CT: What if there are no communication courses offered?
Denning: Students mustn't allow themselves to be shortchanged. You don't have to wait for a formal course. Seize the initiative through independent study projects. Purposely involve yourselves in projects that require you to sell a proposal, write a report, or satisfy a customer. You don't need formal courses to get these skills! All forms of communication depend on your ability to listen to the concerns of the people you're talking with and to put yourself in their shoes. That skill is not something you'll get from a formal course -- you must learn from real life and be involved in situations where those skills matter.
CT: Are engineering students prepared to work in a new workplace?
Denning: The Internet and information technology are affecting engineering to its core. Engineers use IT in increasingly deep ways. Nearly every engineering discipline now uses sophisticated design and graphics tools to prepare sketches, plans, and diagrams. These tools are often linked to analyzers, simulators, and manufacturing machines. In the workplace it's going to be expected of every engineer to use these tools to do their jobs. I advise my students: Don't wait for a course to learn these tools.
IT technology is moving forward rapidly and relentlessly. It is producing new tools supporting improved engineering practices. The infusion rate of this new technology into college courses is agonizingly slow.
CT: How is this affecting engineers moving into their first jobs?
Denning: They are shortchanged. The knowledge they need is there, but often in another department. Consider an example of a petroleum engineer. Petroleum engineers use sophisticated software packages that help them locate oil reserves based on soil samples deep-drilled from a region. These packages rely on mathematical models of oil flows through rocky formations. The mathematical models are solved by applying linear algebra operations to matrices representing the data collected. Linear algebra shows up in many other engineering disciplines. Yet very few courses require students to study mathematical modeling or use linear algebra packages. A student who selected computer science might never encounter one of these packages in a course. He or she will learn a lot of programming, but that's not the same as linear algebra.
CT: Do you agree with industry's accusation that schools are not giving their engineers enough practical training?
Denning: Yes, I think this criticism is valid. The world of industry changes fast and so does engineering practice. In academia, we joke about the inertia of universities with such lines as, "getting professors to line up behind a change in curriculum is like herding cats." Our friends from industry don't think this is so funny. They hate it when we tell that that our job is education, not training, and engineering practice is learned through training. In my opinion, we could incorporate a lot of engineering practice into our curricula without diluting educational value one whit.
Animated by worker shortages or the need to upgrade a project team, corporate representatives come to campus to ask if we can get a short course ready to go in three months. We say, "We'd love to work with you, but it will take a year, maybe a year and a half, to get the course through the approval process." So the company representatives throw up their hands and look elsewhere. Our response is too slow even when the spirit is willing.
CT: How can entry-level engineers prepare to enter the workplace?
Denning: A core principle is that the New Engineer understands that engineering is about helping human beings apply technology to solve problems. This requires a good deal of understanding not only of the technology, but of human practices, human nature, and human concerns. I frequently emphasize this side of engineering because it is not emphasized in many curricula. I don't for a moment advocate that we scrap the teaching of technology in favor of social science. We certainly do not want to graduate incompetent engineers! I do believe we can integrate the human side into our curricula. I also believe that students can take considerable initiative and learn the human side even without formal coursework.
The human side can be treated quite rigorously. Just look for and understand the universal, unchanging aspects of humanity.
CT: What do you mean?
Denning: I'll give an example. Human beings have concerns -- some are personal, some are given by society, some by the workplace, some by our backgrounds. Savvy people can find out a lot about what animates a person by asking questions about work, background, and family. Many concerns are about matters that no human being can escape -- for example, health, children, parents, money, spirituality, communities, or the world. We may not know much about how people will live in fifty years, but it's a sure bet they will have concerns about those inescapables. Technology will overcome many of today's breakdowns, but it won't grant people immortality, relieve them from having children or parents, or relieve their concerns about the meanings of their lives. Once you see people as bundles of concerns, you realize you have to listen to their concerns to get along with them. That reality won't change.
CT: Do you have another example of a reality that won't change?
Denning: Sure. When you want something done you make a request of somebody and that person promises to do it for you; they complete it and you're satisfied. It's a cycle: request, promise, deliver, satisfaction. I guarantee you, no matter what culture or what historical age you look in, you'll see people making requests and keeping promises. Once you realize that all action occurs in the context of these simple cycles, you'll adopt practices to facilitate the cycles. For example, when you hear a request, even one mildly disguised as a hint, you'll respond with accept, decline, defer, or counteroffer. The common response of ignoring the request -- pretending it never came or you didn't hear it -- only creates ill-will and a bigger problem later. Similarly, if you make a request but you don't observe one of these actions next, you might suppose the other person didn't get that you were making a request, and you should try again. In the workplace, I will surely need help from others to complete my promises to you; so I make other requests and thereby participate in a network of commitments with all the other people in the office.
People who fail to keep their promises always earn an untrustworthy reputation. People who keep their promises are invariably seen as trustworthy. Observe your workplace as a place where people are making and fulfilling commitments. You will miss what is really happening if all you see is people sitting at desks and tapping at computers. The network of commitments is what makes the workplace work.
CT: Got any more examples?
Denning: Yes, the phenomenon of our identities -- who we say and think we are. We have several sorts of identities: our private identity, our family identity, our close-friends identity, our workplace identity, and even our public identity. My private identity is the story I tell myself privately about who I am, what I'm good for, what my goals are, etc. My family and close-friends identities may exclude personal secrets and include pretensions. My workplace and public identities will include the stories my coworkers and others tell about me, especially when I'm not around. My professional resume is one picture of my professional identity. But it's not the whole picture. That's why employers want letters of reference. A lot of people don't know what their public image is; consequently they don't know how to shape it. It's shaped by your actions, not your protestations. Suppose that you have a history of promises you broke because you were insincere or you lacked the competence to fulfill them. Should you discover that your coworkers say you are untrustworthy, you won't change their assessments by telling them you really are trustworthy or that the broken promises can all be explained by mitigating circumstances. Instead, you must ask what new actions can you take to build a new assessment of trustworthiness. For example, you might never make a promise you can't fulfill, you will scrupulously manage your promises with other people, and you will get education and training in the areas where you need to make promises. In this way you gain control over your workplace identity. Just being able to observe the phenomenon of identities can give you a sense of competency in a changing world.
CT: How can entry-level engineers keep up with the tremendous changes?
Denning: You need to adopt some of the skills and mindsets of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have learned to respond to change effectively without a lot of planning. This doesn't mean they don't do planning. It does mean they don't get upset if circumstances call for a change of plans. It also means they are willing to take experimental actions, ones that might not work out, knowing that in case of failure they can learn from the mistake and move on. Entrepreneurs are able to proceed on a project with only a half-baked plan complemented with an agility to change direction quickly to meet competition. Entrepreneurs have learned to tolerate ambiguity and their inevitable mistakes. Cultivating an entrepreneurial attitude helps you cope with change.
Many engineering schools teach the opposite. The doctrine of requirements, specifications, prototypes, implementation, and testing implicitly calls for a complete, advance plan. Real engineering practice is not so well structured. The marketplace is too unpredictable and some requirements are unknowable. You have to learn to do planning in parallel with action, to write the specification as a byproduct of building your prototype. People who learn how to be comfortable with that will succeed.
I am not attacking the ideal of doing analytic or simulation work before building a system. With good models and simulators, we can save a lot of time and cost by using them instead of plunging blindly into implementation. But when we find that a model doesn't work well, it may be more cost effective to build the prototype and measure it, than to search for a better model.
CT: What's happened to Dilbert? Is there more understanding that engineers have to deal with people and not just numbers?
Denning: Dilbert's still there. A lot of engineers identify with Dilbert. Dilbert celebrates the nerd -- the engineer who knows what's going on in a workplace laboring under a clueless boss. The company manages to succeed because subversive engineers make the right things happen in spite of their bosses. Scott Adams has done a marvelous job of depicting dysfunctional workplaces. He draws caricatures of truths we may not want to hear. At the same time, he show us no actions that would make a good workplace and he gives the impression engineers can't do much about a dysfunctional workplace.
In the real workplace, many bosses are engineers. To say that they are clueless about engineering is absurd. What many of them lack is the skill of management. They don't see workers as people with concerns or projects as tight networks of commitments. Consequently they attempt to treat people like objects and groups like engines that meet specifications. I think Dilbert and his coworkers share the same blindnesses: when they become bosses, they will create the same kind of workplace because they know no other.
The good news is that you don't have to wait for a boss who knows what's going on. You don't have to accept that you are a victim of management. If your boss doesn't know, brief him or her. Take it on yourself to educate your boss. Become a skilled New Engineer as outlined above, and your workplace will work. And when you get to be boss, your coworkers will appreciate you.
CT: Even though it's a super hot job market, is there such a thing as employer or employee loyalty?
Denning: The number of companies that will offer you a secure job is small. Even the companies that once did, like IBM, no longer promise job security. You have to take it as a fact of life that you will change careers several times before you retire. The companies you work for might still exist but their business emphases will shift.
The companies that inspire the most loyalty are the ones who have built their organizations as communities that members find a lot of value in. A company can build a sense of Adaptable Community -- one that will change with the times and will leave none of its members behind. This can create a sense of security. The greater the sense of job security a company can offer, the more of a stake the employees will feel for their efforts. The company can help by offering rich education and training programs so that employees never feel obsolete. And more generally, but valuing their human capital above all else.
The people who have the least trouble keeping jobs are those who develop and maintain "hot skills". They watch what's shifting in the world and master the skills to adapt. They are problem solvers. They don't get wrapped up in the emotions people bring with their problems; they take helpful action on the spot.
Earlier, I mentioned several phenomena that the New Engineer is able to observe and work with. There's one more relating to job security. I call it world building. A world is a social reality that people construct over time and live in. For example, the world of Walt Disney is different from the world of Intel. The world of information technology inclines us to think that eventually we will perfect our technology; it will run the workplace well and we can all escape the Dilbert world.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Andy Grove, Chairman of Intel, wrote a book, Only the Paranoid Survive. In it he talks about his ways of watching the world. One of his rules of thumb in world-watching is to ask this question about any new technology: if this technology got 100 times better, would that challenge Intel? If it would, he decided he had better acquire that new technology. He had the habit of speculating about how the world of Intel would be affected by other new worlds that might emerge, and the practice of changing the Intel world to accommodate significant changes he anticipated.
A couple of times he significantly redirected the company. For example, Intel used to be a memory chipmaker. At some point Grove realized that memory chips were becoming a commodity with many competitors. He saw this as incompatible with the Intel world, a world of advanced technology without serious competitors. So he took Intel out of the memory chip business and concentrated on CPUs. That was a difficult period because many managers didn't want to give up the memory-chip aspect of the Intel identity. Grove exhibited a skill that is vitally important to success in any workplace and any company. The engineer who thinks computers will solve any workplace problem will focus on codifying existing workplace rules and not on inventing new workplaces that will succeed in the world. That engineer will not end up like Andy Grove.
Read the autobiographies of leaders like Grove. Watch how they observe the world. Learn from them. You won't learn it overnight, but you will set out in the right direction.